Imagine being a college student and leaving your home and family at the age of 19 to visit a third-world country. Now, imagine doing it, knowing you wouldn’t come back for two years.

Blake Stokes, 21, recently returned from a two-year mission trip to Cambodia.

“Pretty much, this mission trip is something that a lot of guys in my church are pretty set on doing when we turn 19,” Stokes said.

Stokes went to a training center for a little more than two months to learn how to teach about Christ and about the Cambodian language of the country before leaving for his trip. Once in Cambodia, Stokes said they were very focused on their work.

“Our daily routine was pretty set,” Stokes said. “We wake up in the morning and we study for a couple of hours. Then we go out teaching and serving.” Stokes said they were usually out in the community from about 10 a.m. to about 8 p.m.

“It was an awesome opportunity to share my beliefs with others,” he said.

Stokes said the experience also allowed him to gain a new perspective. He said one of the biggest shocks he experienced was seeing the amount of poverty in the area. Stokes said it was also strange to see how kind the Cambodian people are.

“We would pull up to a traffic light sometimes next to a guy on a Moped, or something like that, and we’d just start talking,” Stokes said. “It’s totally normal there, no one thinks it’s creepy. I thought that was pretty cool. It kind of shocked me.”

Stokes said leaving his family was a difficult experience but once he was there, he adapted really well and didn’t want to leave.

“It was very hard to leave the country when I was coming back here,” he said. “That was probably just as hard as leaving my family.”

Stokes experienced some culture shock when he was back in Arkansas. He said it took him some time to get used to not having rice in his daily diet, but he admitted stopping at McDonald’s was the first thing he did when he got back.

Stokes will attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, in the fall. He said he is not looking forward to the winter weather in Utah.

“In Cambodia, it’s straight up summer heat all year long,” he said. “It’s going to be pretty cold coming into an American winter.”